


You Will Always Be In Front of Me, Even As I Disappear From View

by lizimajig



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)
Genre: Blood, Canon-Typical Violence, Drama, F/M, Fights, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 17:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizimajig/pseuds/lizimajig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>It's not the best plan in the world, but she dives under Dr. Kasady's desk, and closes her eyes, wishing she had thought to grab something to improvise as a weapon.  The flamethrower had worked really well last time. "Just stay with me as long as you can," she whispers, her stomach in knots.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>"I will, I promise, long as I can."</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Gwen is not the damsel in distress. She is the hero of her own story and doesn't need to be protected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Will Always Be In Front of Me, Even As I Disappear From View

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DaisyNinjaGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisyNinjaGirl/gifts).



> Just a couple things:  
> 1a. I'm aware Kasady/Carnage is not an Oscorp guy in the comics, HOWEVER he is one in the Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark musical (shut up, don't judge me). Long story short: I know. I'm mixing canons because I can, and I think it works in this instance. I know, so please don't flog me for it.  
> 1b. Since it IS Carnage... there is a lot of blood mentioned. I didn't get lovingly graphic with the descriptions, but it's still there in significant quantity. So here's your warning if you want to be warned for blood/gore.
> 
> 2\. It's my intention that this fic could feasibly serve as a bridge between the first and second movies, although I'm sure that won't be the case once the second one comes out, so we may as well enjoy it while we can. XD
> 
> 3\. Happy winter holiday of your choice, Yuletide Recipient. I did my best to make Gwen Stacy as awesome as we could possibly want her and remain true to the spirit of the canon, so I hope you enjoy. (Obviously the rest of you can enjoy as well, and I hope you do!)

Gwen wants to be angry with her father for telling Peter to leave her alone and making him promise to do so, but she can't be mad when she misses him as much as she does. She tries being mad at Peter for holding to his promise, despite his comments to the teacher about the best promises being the ones you don't intend to keep. She can't be angry with them, because she knows they both loved (love?) her. He sits behind her in class, tantalizingly close but far away. Sometimes if she's not paying attention and spacing, she thinks she can feel him playing with the ends of her hair, like he used to do when they were dating -- or maybe it's that he wants to but won't, or she wishes that he would.

Sometimes their eyes meet in the hallway. Her heart breaks a little each time his eyes dart away, and she can see they are alight with something like the guilt of wanting what you know you can't have. On other days, the look lingers, and he almost smiles. Not that incandescent, boyish grin that she loves, but the other, smaller one, like he is recalling the punch line to a really good joke and replaying it to himself. Then they pass each other and when she sneaks a look back, she sees nothing but the back of him. 

Every time Spider-Man makes another appearance on the news, or she hears something on the street or at school or on the subway, there's a painful tug of worry in her stomach. She can't be angry, but thinks that she could be indifferent, at least. The day Peter doesn't show up to school, she knows what a lie that is. 

Gwen tries calling his phone (he's still in her top contacts, that alone should shatter the facade), and it goes directly to voicemail. She doesn't leave a message, because she doesn't know what to say. When she doesn't see him around at lunch, she even tries calling his house, but there's no answer there either. The rest of the day is spent in a haze of distraction as she imagines all the terrible things that could have befallen Spider-Man and, therefore, Peter Parker.

The next day, however, Peter appears again, mostly in one piece. When they pass each other in the hall and she sees him, her jaw drops and she can't pass by in silence anymore. "Peter, what happened!"

For a moment he seems too stunned by the fact that she's spoken to him to answer, but then he recovers slightly. "Oh, uh." He stalls, lightly touching the cut that bisects his right eyebrow, and she can spot the bruises on his neck despite the hoodie meant to shade them from casual view. "You know. Looked sideways at some guy outside the bodega and _bam._ "

She knows that wasn't from some guy in the neighborhood just as well as he does. "Oh is that all?"

"Yeah. You should see him," Peter jokes, and laughs, the kind that asks her to laugh too, but Gwen can't really find it in her to laugh, because all she can imagine is the worst. "Yeah. He doesn't look that bad," he finally admits.

That does make her smile. "Remember your name?"

"Peter... something," he replies, and this time she does laugh. It fades quickly, and silence sits on them like a precariously balanced thing. "I was thinking -- " he starts just as she says, "Well, I should -- "

"Sorry," he replies, sheepish. "You go ahead."

"No, really. You go." She doesn't really want to leave yet.

"I just. I was thinking," he repeats himself, calm but nervous all the same, "we should... do something."

Her heart flutters the same way that it did the first time he'd clumsily asked her out, months ago, and she smiles. "Yeah. I have a free track at the end of the day."

"Oh. That's -- " That is usually when she leaves school to spend a few hours at Oscorp. "You didn't -- I mean, they didn't keep -- "

"I took some time off," she states, matter-of-factly. "After -- with Dr. Connors, and my dad..."

"Right, right," he replies hurriedly. "I didn't forget, I just... didn't know."

"No, of course not," she agrees, and is suddenly focusing on the toes of her shoes, trying not to let the complicated longing for the way things were and missing her father overwhelm her.

"Tell you what," he says after a moment. "Meet me on the steps for last track. We'll go have fun." 

"Okay," she says around the lump in her throat. "I have to go to homeroom now, though."

The first bell, as though agreeing, rings, prompting students to grudgingly head into the classrooms lining the hallway. "Yeah, me too. See you later?"

"Yeah," she says, and briefly catches his hand, squeezing gently. "I've missed you, Peter," she tells him, quietly. Not necessarily the boyfriend, even, but the best friend that came with the boyfriend.

"Me too," he replies, and leans over to kiss her cheek. She wants to turn and kiss that mouth so badly it aches, but does not; if she starts she may never find it in herself to let go, even to go to class. Luckily, he takes the initiative and lets go of her hand. "See you." 

That day in English, she's certain that she feels his fingers brush against her shoulders, the ends of her hair curling around the ends of his fingers and she feels relaxed for the first time in ages.

\---

She and Peter begin to date again. He comes to the apartment with her, once in awhile. Her brothers like him a lot, particularly when they start combining various household chemicals to note their reaction. Simon is interested from the get go, and even though Howard and Philip have deemed themselves too old and therefore too cool to be impressed by kiddie tricks, it doesn't stop them from watching as Peter directs Simon in pouring vinegar into a dish of baking soda. 

Sometimes he stays, almost to dinner. Other times, he looks up into the middle distance, like he hears (or maybe feels) something that the rest of them aren't aware of. There might be the faint strains of a siren that float up to them from the streets below before he says, "I gotta go. See you guys next time?"

"Tomorrow?" Simon asks.

"Sure, maybe. We'll see," he says, pulling on his backpack. "Later?" he asks Gwen.

"Sure, maybe. We'll see," she imitates him, and he kisses her fully, until all of the boys make exaggerated gagging noises, and then he leaves with a rakish grin on his face. She knows he isn't headed down in the elevator, but up in the stairs to the roof, where he'll take off into the late afternoon.

Later that night, after Simon settles in for homework and then bed, and Howard and Philip are set up playing their Xbox in their room, Gwen sits with her mother on the couch and watches the news. They stare at the television as the cameras give a view of the wanton wreckage up and down Ninth Avenue in Chelsea. 

"Passers-by report a humanoid figure, some say dressed in red, others say _made of_ a warm, red substance that some have said they thought to be blood. Though samples have been taken for processing, this has yet to be confirmed or denied by officers on the scene. Police are asking people avoid Ninth Avenue between Eighteenth and Twenty-Third Streets if at all possible, the street and sidewalks will be closed until further notice," a bleach-blonde reporter in a smart pantsuit intones to the camera, the perfect view of police bustling in the background and rubberneckers up against the barricades behind her. "New York's favorite hero Spider-Man showed up to save the day. Although the culprit got away, this already gristly scene could have been much worse."

They cut to interviews with various bystanders, all of them praising Spider-Man -- and, Gwen notices, smeared with that mysterious red substance that could be blood. "Can I ask you something?" she questions her mother, without taking her eyes off the screen.

"Of course," she answers placidly.

"Whenever dad was on a scene like this, were you ever scared he wouldn't come back?" 

Whatever Helen Stacy was expecting Gwen to ask, it isn't that. She sees her mother stiffen out of the corner of her eye, and take a sharp breath. She doesn't expect an answer now, but she hears her mother's barely audible admission, "Every single time."

\---

Peter isn't in school the next day either, so once school is out, she leaves Howard in charge of getting Philip and Simon home safely, and gets on the bus to go to Peter's house. The last time she'd walked up this sidewalk and to the front door was the day her father had been buried. Her blood runs cold to think of it, but she soldiers on, and knocks at the door. Peter's Aunt May answers, and Gwen sees that she recognizes her but maybe can't quite place where from. "Can I help you?"

"Hi. I'm Gwen Stacy, Peter's... friend. I brought him his homework from today." It wasn't a total lie, as she does have his AP Chemistry book in her bag and every intention of letting him copy her notes.

"Oh! How sweet of you," she replies, stepping back from the door to let Gwen inside. "I'm sorry, but you look -- have we -- "

"I don't think so," she answers. "But we, uh. Peter and I dated back in the fall. We're dating again, actually," she adds, more than a tad happily. "I did stop by, one day, after my..."

"Oh, yes your father," May says, and picks up her hand. "I'm sorry. The whole city lost someone great that day."

Stunned, Gwen says nothing for a minute. "Thank you," she manages thickly. "About Peter's uncle... I'm sorry for that, too."

"Thank you, dear." May gives her a small smile, her hands still clasped around Gwen's. She decides she likes Peter's aunt very much. "He's upstairs, dear. His bedroom's at the top of the stairs."

"Thanks." She lets go, and takes the stairs up. She isn't sure what she's expecting to find, but Peter is seated on the floor, his back to the wall. There are easily twenty or more tabs open in his browser, each coverage of the situation in Chelsea caused by the thing the media had dubbed Carnage. The New York Post article is up, and her eyes land on the bolded excerpt in the side column:

_**"He said he had come to cause carnage," Martelli, 48, said, "and God save me, I believed him."** _

It sends a chill up her spine, and at first, all she can do is sit down beside him, legs folded demurely under her. "Carnage," she says quietly, the word dropping from her mouth like pebbles into a pond.

"I don't know what he is," Peter croaks out, "but if he's human he's not _just_ human. He's fast... and strong, and..." He hesitates, as though he knows how this will sound. "His powers were like mine."

"Do you think someone else was bitten by one of those spiders?" she asks, the idea chilling her.

He shakes his head. "I don't -- I guess it's possible. I didn't notice if any other spiders got out. I didn't even notice the one that hitched a ride in my coat." He thinks it over, his fingers tightening over the knees of his sweatpants. For the first time, Gwen notices the bruised, scraped knuckles. "If more than one did get out, does that mean... I'm not a fluke? That a spider could give the same set of powers, roughly, but with different results in each person?"

"I know you're mostly talking to yourself right now," she puts in, whether he listens or not, "but what does this have to do with anything?"

"If I know where it came from, I can see if it has a weakness. If it matches me for strength, speed, all of it, I have to find an upper hand and find the weakness before it finds mine." 

She sees the sense in this, and leans gently against his shoulder. "I don't think your guilty pleasure CD collection will be your downfall," she teases slightly, trying to lighten his mood.

His smile is small and wry, but it is there. "I mean you. Aunt May."

She bristles. "I'm not a weakness."

He doesn't answer directly, just simply says, "I would rather die myself than put you in danger, Gwen."

"I know," she replies. And again it's not that she doesn't appreciate that, but it shoves her into a category that she can only think of as Damsel In Distress, and that in itself is distressing. He doesn't address it further, and so she asks, "How close did you get?"

He shifts and lift the bottom of his t-shirt. "Close."

"Peter!" she gasps. His ribs are black and blue, clearly having taken a beating the night before. "You should have someone look at those," she chides.

He shrugs, as though the matter is of no consequence to him. "I heal faster, too." 

"Well good for you," she huffs. He lets the hem of the shirt fall back down, and she moves to put her arms gently around him. It takes a moment, as though he isn't sure what to do, before he lifts his arms around her in return and gives in to the embrace. "I don't want to see you hurt, either," she tells him.

"I know." His hand is firm on her back, but is not having what she suspects to be the intended calming effect. 

"You know how I told you I used to think about my dad every day he went to work, wondering if he'd be safe and come home for dinner? Now I think about you." 

"Nothing bad is going to happen."

"You can't promise that."

"If I don't deliver, there's not going to be a lot you could do to me."

She pulls back and is careful to hit him in the shoulder where she is pretty sure he's not bruised, but he laughs through a pitiful groan all the same. "I have to go, maybe I can beat my mom home."

"All right," he replies reluctantly. He pulls her forward for just one kiss, and then releases her.

Gwen shuts the door behind her and down stairs checks for Aunt May, and sees her in the kitchen. She pops her head in, just to be polite, and says, "Good night, Mrs. Parker."

"Please -- May, Gwen. How is Peter?" she asks carefully.

"Oh. He's... I think he feels a bit better," she answers.

"Good. Good," the older woman says, scraping diced vegetables into the simmering pot on the stove. "He's just had such a hard time lately, and Ben said it was just a phase teenage boys go through, he'd be fine... but this doesn't feel like a phase." Gwen doesn't know how to answer this, but May saves her with a question: "Does he talk to you? I mean. Really talk. If something's bothering him, or -- just so he's telling _someone_."

"Yes, he -- we talk," she promises.

It doesn't seem to provide May a lot of relief, but she smiles at Gwen. "Thank you, dear." Her smile then grows larger. "You should come for dinner some day when Peter isn't sick. Stop letting him hide you away!"

Gwen grins at that. "We'll plan it," she said. "'Night."

"'Night," May wishes her in return, and Gwen leaves, walking for the bus at the end of the street.

\--- 

In March, Gwen goes back to OsCorp, because she figures she can't avoid it forever. She will be applying to colleges in the fall, and life is pressing onward all the same. She is assigned to Dr. Kasady, who the intern coordinator says she will like. Indeed, she thinks she will like him very much, for he is the only one to mention Dr. Connors to her.

She has met him only once before, briefly, and doubts he will remember her. But when they shake hands, he peers at her over the top of his glasses and greets her, "Gwen. I'm glad you'll be in my department, Dr. Connors was always speaking so highly of you."

It's a rather sudden mention, but one that puts her in mind of the kind mentor she wants to remember. "Thanks, I'm glad to be here."

Dr. Kasady smiles wryly, and drops her hand then. "I'm afraid what we do in hematology isn't quite as exciting as dicing and splicing genes, but important none the less. Shall we get started?"

"Yes, please," she agrees, and she dives right back into the laboratory setting like she never left. She leaves that day feeling exhilarated and, for the first time since her father died, that things can be normal again.

Like most of the brilliant scientists Gwen knows, Dr. Kasady is a little strange, with habits and odd quirks, but she thinks little of them beyond trying to learn them in order to better anticipate his needs, like a good assistant. The work is interesting, research that will help find cures and even preventions for blood-borne diseases and disorders. So it's easy to excuse things like the fact that his favorite thing from the staff cafeteria is extremely rare burgers and he'll only fetch his own coffee.

One day in the first part of April, when the sky is overcast and threatens rain, Gwen steps off the elevator and lets herself in to the department with her key card, only to find the department abandoned. Nothing out of order, just looking as it did at the end of the day, and eerily quiet. "Doctor Kasady?" she calls carefully. There's no answer, so she strides through the main alcove and towards the doctor's office. She knocks, politely, and asks again, "Doctor Kasady, are you here?" 

There's a crash, the sound of some glass breaking. "Doctor -- " 

The door snaps open, just a hair. "I sent everyone home, Gwen. I just -- have to go over some data myself."

"Oh." Unusual, she supposed, but she did have a paper for school to work on, and the extra time could be useful. "Well, I can go ahead and go -- or just hang around outside in case you need something?"

"I'm fine, thank you, Gwen," he says firmly, in a tone that drops on her ears like razor blades. 

"Are you sure? I can grab some tea from downstairs -- "

A hand lashes out toward her and she almost trips as she jumps back. The hand stops short of her face, and then pulls back to grasp the door jamb. "I'm fine," Dr. Kasady repeats. "Go home, Gwen." The door then shuts, closing the discussion.

Stunned, she doesn't move for a moment, or even note anything except the pounding of her heart. But then she sees the mark left on the door jamb and the wall behind it; the red print left behind by the doctor's hand, stark against the pristine, white wall.

She turns and leaves the department and the building, shaken. 

\---

Thirty minutes later, Gwen and Peter are packed into one side of a booth at the Shake Shack on Eight Avenue, trays heaped with the most ridiculous and delicious comfort foods known to man. "You are crazy if you think I am eating that," she laughs, pointing at the two hot dogs heaped with chili and cheese.

"Who said I was going to share, these are mine," he explains, raising his arms around the hot dogs as though to protect them. "You go ahead and eat that grease trap of a burger."

"Uh, there are _vegetables_ on there," she pointed out.

"Chili has tomatoes in it," he retorts, and seems to rethink that, "which is... a fruit, technically... I realized what I was saying about half a second before it came out of my mouth, _agh._ " He does that adorable thing where he laughs and cringes, hiding his face in one hand. "Anyway. No internship?"

"Cancelled today," she replies. She'd been vague on the phone, still shocked from the display in Dr. Kasady's office, and she found she was no more settled here, with Peter. The beyond odd dismissal, the very vibration in the air that told her something wasn't right... "Just letting me out for good behavior, I guess."

He raises an eyebrow at her. "Behaving? Who are we talking about, here?"

"Shut up," she replies and punches him in the shoulder. "Leave me alone, at least my cheese fries don't make fun of me."

The protest is barely out of her mouth and he leans over and kisses her, a hand cupping her cheek. Her heart stops and drops to her stomach, but in the overridingly pleasant way that kissing him always had been. He stops, way too soon. "I bet your cheese fries won't do that," he tells her.

"Peter Parker, one," she says, heart fluttering, "cheese fries, zero."

They hang around there as long as can be considered reasonable, before pulling on their jackets and leaving. "Gotta head home?" Peter asks.

"Yeah," she says, and shrugs. "I have to finish that paper for English. I should have gone right to it, but..." 

"I know, I'm a great distraction," he teases her, with a smug smile. She's about to retort, when a cadre of police cars speed past, sirens blaring. They follow with a glance uptown, where there is a pile up of ten or fifteen cars, but that isn't what stopped traffic in the first place. That would be another car, flung on top of one of the double-decker tourist buses. People begin to stream from the site, running past them to get away from the scene, and that is when Gwen sees it. 

"Peter," she gasps, and points at the bright red spot scaling the Milford Plaza Hotel on the next block.

There's no need. With her arm looped through his she can feel every muscle in his body tighten, like a coiled spring about to release. "Get inside somewhere," he said. "I'll -- call you later."

"What -- Peter!" He takes off towards an alley, somewhere behind them, and she is taken with the tide of people running away. She manages to get out of the crush by ducking into the kitschy gift shop next door to the restaurant, and looks for Peter, but someone spots him before her.

" _It's Spider-Man!_ " one voice cries out, before everyone else takes up the celebratory call.

Spider-Man streaks into view, riding his web strand back up Eighth to meet Carnage. Some people were still running away, others remained in close proximity. Now that Spider-Man was there, they would be safe. 

Gwen sees what Peter means about strong, and fast -- watching the two of them is like watching a deadly dance; Gwen once went to see the Pina Bausch company with her parents with tickets from one of her mother's co-worker at the Museum, and they did the Rite of Spring. It started slowly but built with awful, terrible intensity, and even though she knew it was only a ballet, it felt as though the Chosen One really would die from the frenzied speed of her steps, halted only when she collapsed to the floor at its climax. This fight is like that dance, twisting and a flurry of movements that keeps her riveted as they go in every direction.

But also like the dance, the fight comes its climax, and Peter is losing. Carnage holds him by his neck -- or rather, one of the many appendages that reaches out from his body holds Peter by the neck, and then drops him like a stone from twenty stories up. He shoots web to grab on to something to break his fall, and it catches but it doesn't slow him enough to keep him from crashing into the pavement. Gwen bursts out of the shop, against the throng of people. "PETER!" His name leaves her mouth too quickly to stop, and she bites down on her lip. 

There's a rumble, and then the sky cracks, and it begins to rain. Not just rain, but _pour_ , soaking everyone who stayed to watch the fight. But Gwen is certain she's the only one who doesn't move, but rather looks up, and sees Carnage slink off across the rooftops, as the rain washes away the red he has left behind.

\---

Nights after, Gwen has a recurring nightmare. She's stuck in a tower that doesn't seem to have any way out but out the window, and rather than a dragon as her keeper, it is Carnage. He holds her there, sliding up and down the outside of the tower, wrapped around the cold stone. At first it's her father who tries to rescue her, in full police regalia, but he falls to his death at the bottom of the tower and she weeps all over again.

Then it is Spider-Man, who scales the outside of the tower. She tries to warn him of the danger, that Carnage is almost upon them, but she has no voice to do so. Then there's the fight, the same awful fight they had that day on Eighth Avenue, but this time she watches Spider-Man fall. He falls so slowly, it takes him forever. She jerks awake just as he is about to hit the ground.

Afterwards, she lies awake, unable to fall back asleep. Her phone buzzes, and she picks it up, revealing a text message from Peter: _Hey how do you get blood out of something?_

She types, _Soak in cold water. Spit on it if it's your blood._

_Thank god. Hope the suit isn't dry clean only._

Gwen laughs softly. _Glad to help._

She lays for another moment or two, and the phone buzzes again. _Why are you up? It's late._

 _You texted me, remember?_ She sends that, and then adds, _No reason. Just counting sheep._

_That's supposed to make you sleepy, genius._

_I guess it's not working very well._

_I'll sleep if you sleep,_ he bargains.

She sighs. _I'll try._

_Fair enough. <3 I'll see you tomorrow._

Gwen lays back down in bed, but doesn't sleep again. She turns things over in her head until the sun is rising, and her alarm clock begins to go off for another day.

\---

On a Saturday at the end of April, Gwen is meant to go in to Oscorp for completion of a special project, and ends up sleeping through her alarm. She runs about, getting ready as quickly as possible in order to minimize how late she will be. Even though the train only runs so fast, it doesn't stop her from glancing at the clock on her phone every few minutes.

The elevator doors ding open at five to noon, and she hurriedly swipes in, but is stopped in her tracks almost immediately. It's back, that charge in the air that lets her know something is utterly wrong. "Dr. Kasady?" she calls, dejavu sweeping over her. "Harold?" she then adds, shouting for Dr. Kasady's graduate fellow. ("Three hundred and eighty days to graduation," he joked to her, just the other day.)

This time, however, the door to the doctor's office was open a crack, and she carefully pushed it open. "Harold!" 

He is laying on the floor, covered in blood and gasping for breath. The only part of him that isn't painted crimson with the hot, sticky liquid are his eyes, which are open in horror. "Gwen." He's choking, and she can hear the bubbles of blood pop in his throat. "You -- you leave -- he -- he -- "

"Lay still, I'm going to call 911," she instructs him, her voice shaking, and he waves a hand impatiently. 

"Late -- it's -- Kasady -- Ka -- he -- Car -- " He points behind her, and whatever Harold is trying to tell her, he can't get it all out before he dies there on the rug, drowned in his own blood. She looks, and on the wall, painted in bright red on the wall as put there by a finger-painting child, is:

_CARNAGE IS HERE_

Gwen isn't sure what is going on here, but she knows who she needs to call. With shaking fingers, she cancels her call to 911 and speed dials Peter. He picks up after two rings and answers, "Hey Gwen."

"Doctor Kasady is Carnage." She can hardly believe it herself, but what else explains it -- the bloody handprint the same day as his second fight with Spider-Man, the rare burgers...

"Doctor -- your boss? At Oscorp?" He doesn't ask her how she knows, and because he knew she had to be there this morning, instead tells her, "If you're there you need to get out of there right now. Where is he?"

"I don't -- he's not here, it's just -- Harold's _dead_ and -- " The sound of something large, probably one of the tables in the laboratory, turning over and glass breaking cuts her off and she jumps back onto the desk. The travel mug of coffee is upset, overturning and revealing that it's not coffee that is spilled -- but blood. "He's here," she whispers.

"Gwen you need to leave, _now._ " She can hear the panic in his voice but she can also hear that he's moving. Wherever he was, he's now coming to the rescue. 

"I -- he's out front, I don't think I can out run him to the back -- " Another crash, closer this time.

"Then you need to hide," he says urgently.

It's not the best plan in the world, but she dives under Dr. Kasady's desk, and closes her eyes, wishing she had thought to grab something to improvise as a weapon. The flamethrower had worked really well last time. "Just stay with me as long as you can," she whispers, her stomach in knots.

"I will, I promise, long as I can."

" _Gwen._ " She can only describe the voice as how she imagines a snake would speak, low, and deceptively smooth. "I can smell your blood. Your fragile heart is beating so fast... sending it coursing through your body. I can always... smell it..."

As though she could stop breathing and by that way avoid detection, she remains perfectly still and listens to Peter's breath on the other side of the line. For a moment there's a calmness to the air, like she had succeeded in evading the monster. It had crawled away, and she was safe -- but she breathed too soon. The desk overturned from on top of her, and she screamed, looking up into the terrible face of Carnage for the first time. 

His mouth spread into a horrific grin, teeth long and pointed. "Gotcha." 

"PETER!" Her phone is ripped from her hand and dashed against the opposite wall half a second after she shouts, and for a wild moment she thinks she can run, but this is fancy. She isn't even to her feet before the slick appendages appear from Carnage's side and pick her up. Another throws the desk again, this time against the floor-to-ceiling windows, shattering them and giving a way out. 

"Don't worry. You're only bait," he tells her in that smooth, dreadful tone. "A fly for the spider."

\---

Long Island City across the East River from Manhattan is home to a surprising number of abandoned warehouses and the like, right on the water. Gwen didn't think it was possible for that much waterfront property to just have nothing on it in this part of the state.

On the other hand, she has never imagined herself tied to a pipe that stretches up to the ceiling, either. It's such a cliche she almost forgets to be scared rather than embarrassed about it. "You know, he loses track of time sometimes, he gets involved in a project, and one thing leads to another..."

"Shut up." Carnage is scuttling from one corner of the ceiling to another -- just like a spider in a web, and as he said, she is the fly caught in its center. "I am patient, I can wait."

"Well I'm not, I woke up late and only had time to grab a cereal bar," she grumbles.

"Had I known that I would have stopped for some Subway." Spider-Man slides in the large, open door on the waterside, landing down on all fours. She wonders for a moment if it's the suit that frees him like that, because she never sees him in such a way out of it, when they're just hanging out doing homework or watching Netflix in her room. "Sorry I'm late, but running across to Manhattan only to find out you've made it all the way over here," he adds conversationally, as he stalks over and climbs the wall opposite from Carnage. "It was super inconvenient."

"Spider-Man." Gwen looks up, Carnage right above her, protecting her like she is its prey that the other predator will steal away.

"You got me, so you can let her go now." They circle, the prelude to the same dance they'd done before.

She feels one of the tentacles (in truth, she's not sure what to call them, they can come and go in as much quantity as he likes) slither around her middle, and another must be undoing the heavy rope that holds her there, because her feet lift off the air, and she is half way up to the ceiling. "I think I'll keep her awhile longer," Carnage hisses. "It will make you a little more flexible."

"I'm pretty flexible already, or haven't you checked out my moves?" Peter says. Gwen hears his nerves, but she thinks that might be because she knows him so well. He's hard to read behind the mask. 

"We are brothers," Carnage continues, paying Peter's sarcasm no mind. "Born in the laboratory, true, but brothers all the same. I don't know how Connors did it -- but you took part in the genetics experiment too, didn't you? It's the only explanation..."

"I wouldn't call myself a volunteer. Are you going to tell me what you want? Gwen looks like she wants to go home and I'm a little bored myself." He slowly advances across the ceiling, more spider than human.

" _No closer,_ " Carnage warns, and Gwen winces as the tentacle tightens around her middle and slams her back into the concrete wall, a little heavily. It stops Peter in his tracks. "Regardless. Your transformation... was a success. Connors couldn't handle the side effects and this... I can keep it under control, mostly."

"Yeah. I see that," he says, his tone suggesting the opposite.

"Was it Connors? Or was it your father?" 

That is the thing that changes the conversation. "What about him?"

"Peter," Gwen shouts, a warning, and he moves out of the way in time to avoid Carnage's own webbing -- apparently natural, rather than mechanical, like Peter's. He responds by no longer keeping his distance, and coming in close. Gwen drops ten feet to the ground when the dance begins, knocking the breath out of her lungs. She's sticky with the blood that Carnage excretes, and could gag from the smell of it, if only she could breathe.

"Gwen, run!" Peter shouts to her, close only for a second and then he springs back, leading Carnage away from her. 

The door is there, all of twenty feet away. _Get up, Gwen. Get up and go. Get up._ Her body aches and her lungs burn as she tries to take in air, and somehow manages to make it to the door that will take her across the street. But she can't leave him. She knows he would yell, but all she can think of is the last time she saw her father. _Make sure he's okay._

George Stacy isn't here. There's only one person who can make sure he's okay now. "Hey! Carnage!"

That moment, he seems to realize his hostage and bargaining chip is about to get away. He tosses Peter across the warehouse into the opposite wall. He recovers well, but won't get there before Carnage, not with the walls and floor slick with blood -- _soak it in cold water._

Half a second after it dawns on her, she prays that this will work, and pulls the fire alarm.

Shrill bells ring, and interrupt Carnage in his speed to get to her. It's loud, but doesn't affect her or Peter nearly as much as it does the villain. He drops to the floor, hands over his ears, and screams bloody murder. Then it takes another couple seconds, but Gwen sees that Carnage is steaming -- no, smoking. It's like the Wicked Witch of the West come to life. Gelatinous pieces slough off , exposing flesh, muscle, and bone below, and then even the bone begins to break away.

Gwen is horrified, and can only react when the screaming has stopped, and all that's left is a mess on the concrete floor. Even then, it is only a choked sob.

And then Peter's there. The suit isn't soft like the sweatshirts she is used to pressing her face into, but it has a different kind of comfort, but it's still his arms around her that lift her up above the slurry on the floor, and his shoulder that she rests on, and it's his voice that tells her, "You did good, Gwen. You did so good."

"I want to go home." She's afraid she'll cry, and doesn't want to do it there, where she can hear the sirens approaching, and another mentor destroyed, this time for good.

"Then let's go," he says. "Hold on." 

She does as he says and holds on, her eyes squeezed shut as he swings her back to the apartment.

\---

Her brothers and mother are out, so they don't need an excuse for how they came back to the apartment without anyone hearing them come in, or why they are covered in blood. Gwen says nothing at first to Peter, but stalks into the shower and takes the longest, hottest shower of her life. She places the clothes she'd been wearing into a trash bag, and throws that one inside yet another trash bag, before she drops it down the garbage chute. She makes tea while Peter borrows the shower, and he dresses in jeans and a t-shirt he stashes in her room for such occasions. 

On the roof, and sit in silence until the tea is cold and the breeze has blown their hair dry. And then, they simply hold hands, until she figures out the question to ask: "Why did he ask about your father?"

Peter's brow furrows, and for a minute she thinks he's not going to answer. But he says, "My parents both worked for Oscorp, and my dad with Dr. Connors. He... he's the one who found the algorithm for inserting animal genes into the human DNA sequence. That's the one he used to regrow his arm, and that made him the Lizard." He contemplates something else for a minute and adds, "I found it hidden in an old briefcase. It's like he knew what it was going to do." He shakes the fog away. "Sounds like he figured I was a lab experiment gone right, instead of a freak accident."

She smiles wanly, and lays her head on his shoulder. "But you're my freak accident."

He squeezes her hand, but he doesn't relax. "There's something not right with Oscorp. Not right at all. Do you know what Kasady was up to?"

She shakes her head. "Whatever it was... I think he used himself as a subject. Like Dr. Connors." 

"Sounds right. He implied we were born of the same... whatever is happening there." 

It was disturbing, Gwen agreed, but Peter seemed extra perturbed by it. "What's wrong?" she asked.

"Dr. Kasady was taking blood, and _becoming_ blood," he said, looking out over the balcony. "Dr. Connors went mad when he experimented on himself. What if I'm a time bomb, just waiting to go crazy and kill people?"

"You're not. You're different," she insists. "You're better."

"It's just -- a thing I think," he replies, brushing the subject off. "It doesn't have any basis in reality, it's just a stupid fear. A minor one, even."

Gwen took his chin in her hand and turned him to look at her. "You _are_ different. I don't know what it was in Dr. Connors or Dr. Kasady that turned on them like that, it -- you don't have it."

The look on his face is grateful, but skeptical. "How do you know?"

"I just know. Dummy," she replies, fondly.

Peter smiles now, not a very large one but one that melts her all the same. "You're not a weakness. You're my strength."

"Next time you can get kidnapped by the crazy madman and I'll come swinging to your rescue, okay?"

He pulls a face. "I wish you wouldn't joke about that."

If she doesn't joke about it, she may lose her mind. "I'm not going anywhere, Peter. Neither are you. Okay? If Oscorp is up to something, we'll figure it out. They can't be getting rid of their best and brightest on purpose, and besides, it's awful PR. If there is something there, we will _find it,_ okay?"

"I don't want you in danger," he argues. "I want you safe."

"I'm not safe," she retorts bluntly. "But I'm not going to spend time wishing I was with you when I could just do that, or pretend something isn't happening when I know it is. I'm involved, Peter. I was involved the day you asked me out in the hall. Maybe before that."

He sighs. "I'm never going to win this one with you, am I."

"Don't think of it as winning and losing. We're better together and you just have yet to get with the program."

She is a bit more forceful than she'd meant to be when she said it, but where she thinks it will just make him sigh again, it makes him smile. "Yes, dear."

She laughs at that. "Now shut up and kiss me."

"An order I can get behind." 

He leans over and kisses her on the mouth. She wraps her arms around him, bringing him close, and there they lay together until the sun starts to sink under the horizon and twilight appears in the sky, purple, then blue, and then black as blood.


End file.
